


(I don't want a) civilized love

by banshee_in_the_dark



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy kind of helps her, Clarke deals with things, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, If You Squint - Freeform, Nightmares, Post-Episode: s02e08 Spacewalker, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banshee_in_the_dark/pseuds/banshee_in_the_dark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wants to scream at him, beg him to stay because she can’t face the monsters in her dreams alone. It’s not pride that stops her, but his halted step and the brief caress of his eyes when he glances at her one last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(I don't want a) civilized love

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry! I know you’re all waiting for the next chapter of Caught and I promise I will post it this weekend. Meanwhile I have this little one-shot for your, borne out of my frustration of being without internet and therefore without any form of fandom outlet for almost a month. I also didn’t get a chance to watch the episode last night so needless to say I am _dying_ here.
> 
> Anyway. I wrote this thing I don’t even know how I feel about but I hope you like it. It’s AU of course, but there are spoilers from ‘Remember Me’ and one of the upcoming episodes from the sneak peeks and episode descriptions released. 
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful beta, Amanda, who worked at lightning speed on this messy thing and did a fantastic job like always.

“We need their army to get to Mount Weather, Bellamy, and you know it.”

“Their _army_ has been getting their ass kicked by Mount Weather forever,” he counters. “What we need is an inside man, someone to be our eyes and ears.”

Clarke’s eyes flicker closed for a moment, considering his suggestion and knowing instinctively who he would propose as a candidate for such a task, before she shakes herself. “Forget it. It’s too dangerous.”

He waits a beat, glances around them in a wide sweep of their surrounding before she can again feel the heat of his stare on the side of her face. “Clarke, if you can make it out, I can make it in,” Bellamy insists.

“I said no,” she says sharply.

He looks away from her with a little shake of his head. She thinks for a moment, stupidly, that he’ll drop the matter. Clearly she’s grown too accustomed to Bellamy and her seeing eye to eye on most things and him letting her have the last call to anticipate he might fight her this time.

After a beat he speaks, his tone clipped and his words measured. “Since I don’t take orders from you, I’m gonna need a better reason.”

Clarke turns to look at him. He keeps his eyes trained on the path ahead of them. She has a prime view of his profile, allows herself a second to appreciate the firm line of his jaw, stubbornly set. “I can’t lose you too, okay?”

He’s clearly taken back but to his credit, his step doesn’t even falter. Bellamy shakes his head, flustered, but doesn’t say anything. If Clarke’s spirit wasn’t so wearied after the events of the last twenty four hours she would entertain the notion that her blurted out confession touched him and he’s shy to meet her eye.

\--

Finn lurks around corners and behind trees, he straddles their branches and looks down at her. He follows her into every room no matter how small or big or crowded it is. He tracks her like prey, sticks close to her like a shadow, always there at the edge of her vision.

He never says anything and he keeps his distance. Clarke knows, intellectually, that he’s not really there. She felt it in her bones when his body took its last breath, watched him for hours while he laid prone on the ground until the grounders came to take him away. She followed the grounders who took his corpse to Lincoln’s village and never once lost sight of him.

He’s dead but he’s not gone.

She finds no rest in sleep. Nightmares cloud her the moment she closes her eyes and her tired body surrenders to slumber. Blood stains her fingers, sticky and hot. It burns through layers of skin and corrodes her bones.

He’s there too. Finn. Standing before her, stoic, the front of his shirt completely drenched in blood. His silence speaks volumes. His eyes bore into hers, dull with death’s spell, as she apologizes. Nothing she ever says is enough to wipe the accusation off of his face.  She tries to reason with him, explain that she tried to save him, she did, and in the end didn’t she? But all he ever says is _thanks princess_ , mocking her, sneering, and she wakes up with a sob crawling up her throat.

Bellamy is always there too, another constant, albeit a welcome one. 

He leans over her and shakes her awake gently. Clarke gasps, piercing flashes of pain on the palms of her hands from clenching them into fists while she was having the nightmare, so hard that her fingernails bit into the flesh of her palms. Bellamy looms over her, his lips move but she can’t make sense of the words, though the look on his face plainly shows his concern for her. He seems to fill the whole space around her and suck all the air out of the tent. Or maybe that was her, hyperventilating. With effort, Clarke sits up slowly, becoming dizzy as the world comes to focus around her and blood rushes through her ears. She swallows carefully around the ball of grief and guilt clogging her throat and tries to calm her erratic breathing. She rubs the sleep from her eyes, discreetly watching him as he sits back giving her some space. He kneels beside her cot, one hand cupping her shoulder and the other fisting the covers by her hip.

“Have you been here all along?” she frowns. He stayed with her earlier until she fell asleep, but he promised he’d find his own bed after and get some rest himself.

Bellamy shakes his head. His hand leaves her. Clarke ignores the tiny surge of disappointment she feels at the loss of contact. “I was on patrol when I heard you.”

“What time is it?”

“Really fucking early. You almost made it a full night.”

“Go me,” she cheers dispassionately. “Did you check up on Raven last night?”

He nods. “She was already asleep when I got there.”

“Good,” Clarke yawns and settles on her side on the mattress. She hugs her pillow to her chest, eyes following Bellamy as he sits down on the floor with his back to the side of the cot and his long legs sprawled before him. She bends her knees until they touch the back of his neck. He shoots her a brief grateful smile and leans his head back against her knees.

“I’ll stay till you fall asleep.”

“Won’t Byrne be pissed at you for taking a break in the middle of your shift?” Clarke asks softly.

He looks away for a second and the telling curl downward of the corners of his lips confirms Clarke’s suspicions. “Let me worry about Byrne.”

Clarke smiles to herself, closing her eyes and letting sleep reclaim her.

\--

“You never liked him.”

“I don’t like people in general.”

The corner of Clarke’s mouth turns up slightly. She rolls on her side. Her gaze tries to find Bellamy’s, wishing she could see his warm brown eyes in the dim night, but the moon is covered by thick clouds and the campfire died long ago.

“I’m serious. You didn’t get along with Finn.” She enunciates her words carefully, making sure there’s no hint of accusation in her voice.

He sighs, scoots closer to the tree he’s leaning on and tries to find a comfortable position. “I didn’t hate him,” he says ducking his face to look at her lying on the ground next to him.

There are others around them, her mother, Kane and a handful of guards, all of them fast asleep after a long day’s journey. Another two guards circle the improvised campsite a ways off, keeping watch.

“You didn’t like him,” Clarke presses. “Admit it.”

 “I uh,” another sigh. He tilts his head back making contact with the tree trunk with a dull thud. He seems at a loss for words and for some reason it amuses Clarke. “I disagreed with some of his choices.”

Clarke snorts softly. Bellamy Blake is many things, but a diplomat he’s not.

“Fine. I didn’t really like him and he annoyed the ever living shit outta me. He was a self-righteous prick, a cheater, and if avoiding the consequences of his actions was an Olympic sport, he’d have won gold. And I have no right to judge for _obvious_ reasons…” the words stumble past his lips rapidly and he looks away, ashamed Clarke thinks, and probably thinking about a radio and a river that sealed the fate of three hundred lives. “…But I’m also not a fan of how he shot down that village and then guilt-tripped you into thinking it was your fault.”

“Jeez, Bellamy, don’t hold back, tell me how you _really_ feel,” she says sarcastically, unable to keep a bit of anger to bleed onto her voice.

He looks at her sharply. “You asked.”

“Then why did you try so hard to save him?” she grits out.

She knows why she tried. Because when closely inspected, the root of the blame was her. Finn loved her and that love twisted him and took him down a path of no return. He turned into a monster because of her so it was her job, her responsibility, to do everything in her power to make it right, to save him.

But Bellamy? He didn’t carry that burden. He could remain detached. He’d taught her through action that there were no absolutes, no black and white, just shades of gray. Her blind righteousness was a weakness on the ground, but he was flexible where she wasn’t. Finn was their friend but he’d done a terrible thing. In that context, he was the same as Murphy and he’d never win their trust back no matter how badly he craved their approval. If a multitude of grounders came knocking on their door and asked them to deliver Murphy, Clarke wasn’t so sure she would try half as hard to protect him as she had Finn. It was selfish and petty and unfair, because Murphy was a murderer but he wasn’t a _mass_ murderer. And it was glaringly obvious she was biased, wretchedly so.

“He was still one of us. And –” he clears his throat nervously. “And I have your back,” Bellamy says simply.

Clarke swallows the grief balling on her throat. She turns her back on him, murmuring good night. She fakes sleep even after his soft snores indicate he’s no longer awake. The weight of his trust rests uncomfortably on her chest, smothering her. She’ll disappoint him eventually, inevitably.

\--

“Drinking alone?” Bellamy quirks an eyebrow. He doesn’t even make an effort to hide his disapproval.

Clarke giggles, downs the last bit of moonshine in her cup and pushes back on her feet. She crosses the distance to Bellamy with as much grace as her inebriated state allows her and nearly stumbles into him. She presses her palms against the firm planes of his chest to stabilize herself and raises hooded eyes to his. “I was waiting for you,” she bites her lip. “C’mon.”

She pulls him by the wrist and pushes him to take a seat on her bed, then promptly plops right next to him, scooting until their thighs touch and she can burrow into his side.

Bellamy stiffens and gently tries to put some distance between them.

“No, no,” Clarke protests. She grabs the bottle of moonshine from the floor. “They finally sanctioned the mission. We move on Mount Weather in two days,” she says gravely, then ruins it but snorting with laughter. “They have acid fog to protect the veritable fortress they’re safely tucked into. We have spears and a few guns so.” She takes a healthy swig of the bottle. “One for me,” she giggles and kneels next to him, swaying only slightly on the lumpy mattress. “One for you.”

“I’m good thanks,” Bellamy says, firmly taking the bottle from her and putting it down.

“I’m not done with that,” Clarke frowns.

“I think you are.”

She licks her lips, letting her eyes wander over his face. So stoic and reserved. Tense. “If you’re sure,” she breathes the words next to his skin right under his ear, smiling widely at the big gulp of air he takes.

Before he has a chance to do or say anything, Clarke launches herself at him and straddles his lap, scooting closer until they’re chests to chest. Her fingers lace at his nape and her lips rain desperate kissed over his neck and jawline. Bellamy reels back, curls his hands around her arms and pushes her away.

“Clarke, what the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” she gives him a little teasing smirk, aiming higher this time with her mouth and kissing him firmly on his lips.

She moves against him, her hips and lips finding a rhythm aided by the confidence only copious amounts of alcohol provides. She teases the seam of his mouth with the tip of her tongue, asking for entrance, but it remains stubbornly closed.

After a few moments she sits back, confused, searching his face with a frown. What she finds looking back at her makes her turn cold all over.

“Are you done?” Bellamy bites out.

“What’s wrong?”

She sees his jaw clench and his frown darken. “You’re drunk, Clarke.”

“Not so much that I don’t know what I’m doing,” she argues. Her hands trail down his torso and slip under his shirt, feeling his abs ripple under her touch. “What I want.”

He almost caves under her next kiss. He opens for her a bit, reluctantly, but enough for her tongue to slip in and taste him.

“And I know you want me too,” Clarke insists, rolling her hips slowly against him. The thick column of his hardness is trapped in his pants but she can feel him all the same, right there where she burns for him. “I see the way you look at me when you think I’m not looking. I know you stay with me every night after I fall asleep and then lie and say you were on patrol,” she buries her face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in and suckling the ticklish skin there. “I want you.”

“This is not happening,” Bellamy growls, tearing her away from him and dropping her unceremoniously onto the bed. Clarke gapes at him as he jumps to his feet, pacing the small space of her tent and angrily rubbing a hand over his face.

“What is your problem?” Clarke cries. The passion in her veins cools rapidly, sobering her, but the throbbing warm spot between her legs remains.

“ _My_ problem? My – ?” Bellamy half laughs, a grating, mirthless sound. His hands fist at his hips. “You need to sleep. Now.”

She sneers at him, turning up her nose. “I don’t take orders from you.”

Throwing his words back at him is childish and petty but if he caught the reference he plainly ignores it. He moves past her and throws back the covers of her bed. “Sleep. Now.”

Clarke slaps him. Hard. He merely blinks, his face set on an unreadable mask. Bellamy gently but firmly pushes her down with his hands on her shoulders until she rests heavily on her back. Clarke turns and screams in frustration into her pillow.

She waits for him to leave but he doesn’t. After a while her sobs quiet and she turns her face towards him, dread pooled uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. The pillow, wet with her tears, sticks to her cheek. Her eyes remain shut but she doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s there, and she doesn’t want to look at him, _can’t_ , while she burns with embarrassment. “I thought you wanted me,” she whispers lamely. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’m so tired… I need you, Bellamy. I need something.”

“I can’t make you forget him Clarke.”

His words cut razor-sharp into her heart, bringing forth a new rush of silent tears.

She turns on her back, braving a look at him. “Why not?”

Bellamy gets that look on his face, with his eyebrows down low and knitted, eyes shining and piercing her gaze, staring into the depths of her very soul.

She can almost feel the words he doesn’t say. She swallows more tears, hating him and herself and everything in between. It’s not fair.

Bellamy leaves, only halting for a second as he exits the tent. She wants to scream at him, beg him to stay because she can’t face the monsters in her dreams alone. It’s not pride that stops her, but his halted step and the brief caress of his eyes when he glances at her one last time. It’s knowing that’s she’s ruined everything and she’s a fool, it’s all her fault.

His footsteps go no further than the side of the tent. She hears him sit down on the cold ground, moving until he’s comfortable with his back against one of the thick supporting columns. She curls on her side with her face closest to where he is and traces his silhouette until she drifts to sleep.

She wakes up to a splitting headache and a distraught Octavia on the brink of hysterics.

\--

Lincoln barely makes it back.

He relays the sequence of events without meeting her eyes once, regardless of the fact that she’s standing right in front of him and glaring daggers. Clarke would be impressed if she wasn’t so terrified.

The tunnels were crawling with Reapers, he said. They fenced them off but got backed against a corner right before the Mountain Men came. There were only three of them and they gave the voice of alarm through their radios. There were gunshots and flying fists and they managed to get away before more came. But Bellamy was injured and couldn’t keep up.

“And you just left him there?” Octavia demands from her place on the other side of the room.

Lincoln shakes his head, looking at her imploringly. “I couldn’t carry him.” 

Clarke’s examining him with clinical detachment, taking in the gunshot wound on the side of his abdomen and his right arm, broken in two places.

“He insisted I return to you and tell you the tunnels were too dangerous,” his eyes shift up, fixed on a random spot next to Clarke’s head.

“We’ll find another way in,” Clarke states, shooting Octavia a reassuring look. “If the Mountain Men have your brother they’ll want any information he has. We’ll get him back,” she promises.

Octavia nods, once, and with a final betrayed look at Lincoln prone on the medical bed she exits the room.

Out of the corner of her eye, Clarke sees Lincoln shake his head. For the first time since he regained consciousness, he meets her gaze dead on.

“He’s dead.”

Clarke narrows her eyes. “You don’t know that.”

“He was shot in the chest, here,” he indicates a spot just under his right breastbone.

“Bellamy’s stronger than you might think,” she shakes her head though her heartbeat accelerates.

Lincoln looks at her with something akin to pity swimming in his eye. “He was coughing blood and there was no movement in his lung – ”

“Shut up.”

“He was barely conscious when he asked me to take care of Octavia – ”

“He will be fine,” Clarke insists, gesticulating widely. “He’s important to the Mountain Men, they’ll patch him up and then try to get information from him. He will be fine!” she shouts desperately, not knowing who she’s trying to convince.

There’s a long moment of silence where Lincoln looks away allowing her some privacy to compose herself.

Finally, he whispers. “He asked me to tell you he was sorry.”

Clarke tears her eyes away from him and reaches the sliding door in a few quick strides. “He will be fine,” she says under her breath, repeating the words like a mantra over and over again.

\--

Fine is a relative term.

Her heart rate picks up when his eyes flutter open, slowly blinking away the fog of sleep. He makes a move to sit up but the pain in his right side doesn’t let him, so she pushes her seat closer to his bed and cups his head, lifting it to slide a pillow under it.

“Take it easy,” she coos.

“What happened?” Bellamy rasps. He moves his legs experimentally, eyes widening in alarm. “Is there something in my…?”

Clarke bites the inside of her cheek to keep from chuckling. “It’s a catheter.”

His eyes fall shut with a groan. “Please tell me you didn’t put it in.”

This time she does laugh. “Jackson did it. I’d ask him to remove it but you’re not gonna be able to move for a few days.”

Bellamy cracks one eye open. “I feel alright.” He tries to sit up straighter in bed.

Clarke rushes forward, wrapping her hands on his shoulders and gently but firmly pushed him back. “That’s the analgesics talking. We scored some pretty nice drugs when we raided Mount Weather.”

Bellamy gives her a small, crooked smile. “Lucky me.”

Clarke swallows. “Bellamy what happened? Do you remember anything?” she asks tentatively, her eyes suspiciously bright. “Some of your injuries were consistent with –”

“Torture. Yeah.”

She nods, ducking her head to hide the tears welling in her eyes. According to Lincoln, his condition was dire when he left him in the tunnels, but as Clarke had hoped/expected, the Mountain Men found him before it was too late and stabilized him enough to torture him for information.

It seemed so cut and dry before – just facts that kept her sane. Being captured by the Mountain Men was Bellamy’s only chance of survival so Clarke prayed and prayed for that outcome. But it meant he’d be further hurt, a fact she tried to ignore, keeping her eyes on what was important, bringing him home alive. But after rescuing him she was faced with the result of her prayers – Bellamy’s hurt, scarred body, littered with cuts, bruises, and broken bones. How could he ever forgive her for wishing he’d be captured, when it’d put him in a world of pain and despair?

“I didn’t tell them anything,” Bellamy assures her.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had.” The words stick in her throat and her lip trembles. “We could’ve lost you…”

“Hey,” he plucks her hand from her knee where her fingers were leaving indentations from gripping so hard. Clarke sighs, turns her hand in his and laces their fingers together. “How’s everyone? Did they all make it out okay?”

“Harper’s in delicate condition, but she’s a strong girl. I think she’ll be fine.”

Bellamy nods, his eyelids dropping tiredly. “Good. I didn’t miss anything exciting then,” he yawns.

Clarke finds herself smiling, really smiling for the first time in what feels like months.

“You need to rest,” she hitches the blanket higher up Bellamy’s chest, softly patting over his heart. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it please leave a comment! But please no spoilers. I get to watch it tomorrow night when I _finally_ return home from my vacation and I don't want to ruin it. Oh, and keep an eye out for Caught in the Fire this Saturday :-)


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